telling him what I thought of him. And seeing him so frightened, I
put the revolver back in my pocket and walked close to him while I told
him all the things I could think of.

"As I thought of my poor girl that he'd killed I grew savage, and I told
him that I had a good mind to break every bone in his body. He threatened
to have me arrested for breaking into the place, but I only laughed and
hit him across the face. He backed away from me with a wicked look in his
eyes, and I followed him. He backed quickly towards the door, and before
I knew what game he was up to be made a dart out of the room. But I was
too quick for him. I got him at the head of the stairs and dragged him
back into the room and shut the door and stood with my back against it.
I told him I hadn't finished with him. I had mastered him so quickly, and
was able to handle him so easily, that I didn't watch him as closely as I
ought to have done. He had backed away to his desk with his hand behind
him, and suddenly he brought it up with a revolver in his hand.

"'Now it's my turn,' he said to me with his cunning smile. Throw up
your hands.'

"I saw then it was man for man. If I let him take me I was in for a
good seven years. I'd sooner be dead than do seven years for him.
'Shoot and be damned,' I said. I ducked as I spoke, and as I ducked I
made a dive with my hand for my hip pocket where I had put my revolver.
He fired and missed. He fired again, but his toy revolver missed fire,
for I heard the hammer click. But that was his last chance. I fired at
his heart and he dropped beside the desk, I didn't wait for anything
more--I bolted. I got tangled in the staircase curtains and fell down
the stairs. As I was falling I thought what a nice trap I would be in
if I broke my leg and had to lie there until the police came. But I
wasn't much hurt and I got up and dashed out of the house and over the
fence into the wood, the way I came."

He stopped, and his gaze wandered round the hushed court till it rested
on the prisoner, who with his hands grasping the rail of the dock had
leaned forward in order to catch every word. Kemp turned his gaze from
the man in the dock to the man in the scarlet robe on the bench, and it
was to the judge that he addressed his concluding words.

"You can call it murder, you can call it manslaughter, you can call it
justifiable homicide, you can call it what you like, but what I say is
that the man you have in the dock had nothi